The Short Version
- Platform: Xbox 360
- One Word: Streamlined
- Two Words: Shepard Lives!
- Worth It: Yes
- Scale: terrible | poor | fair | good | great
This review contains spoilers from the first 15 minutes of the game, where something major happens. If you haven’t already heard about it, you might be upset at me for mentioning it. Proceed with caution.
When a game is already great, it’s often a tough act to follow. Many sequels to great games have been extremely good games in their own right, but did not quite live up to the original (see: my recent review of BioShock 2). Other sequels to great games are just plain not as good. It’s a rare thing indeed to find a sequel to a great game which is better than the original in virtually all ways. Mass Effect 2 is one of these sequels.
At the end of the first Mass Effect, your character has saved not just the planet, not just the solar system, and not just the local cluster, but the entire damn Milky Way from annihilation at the hands of the evil Reapers. These creatures are gigantic, sentient, robotic space-squid that hibernate in “dark space” (the empty area between the Milky way and its nearest neighbor) most of the time. Every fifty thousand years or so they wake up, warp in to the galaxy, and proceed to destroy all sentient organic life. Why they choose to do this is not exactly made clear in Mass Effect. For now, it’s good enough that you, as Commander Shepard, have managed to thwart their plans via courage, good looks, and the human penchant for unparalleled violence.
I played through Mass Effect in its entirety not once, but twice, the first time as Commander Adrian Shepard, a bald Asian dude with a rocking handlebar-mustache-and-beard combo that made the ladies swoon, and the second time as Commander Adrienne Shepard, a sharp-faced, raven-haired woman with a predilection for heavy eye-shadow and black lipstick. Both of them were “Paragons,” which is to say that they didn’t choose to be total assholes to anyone and everyone they met. Stick with me here because this will mean something in the long run.
Mass Effect 2 allows you to import your character from the first game and keep playing with the same basic traits, appearance, and so forth. This really helps keep you invested in the story, since you’re picking up right where you left off (well,okay, two months after you left off). Once you’ve imported this character who you’ve grown attached to over the course of dozens of hours of play, the game does the only logical thing: it immediately and mercilessly kills you off.
Never fear, though, because a rogue pro-human agency named Cerberus shouts “WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY” and rebuilds you, Steve Austin-style, over a period of two years and to the tune of 4 billion intergalactic credits (that’s a lot). Cerberus needs you to spearhead the fight against the Collectors, a mysterious alien race that’s abducting human beings from fringe colonies for unknown, but probably Reaper-related, reasons. So now you’re back, albeit with some glowing facial scars and an apparent loss of any and all techniques/powers you acquired in the first game. This is what’s known as “a plausible excuse to set the character back at level one.”
From here you’ll embark on an adventure that spans the galaxy, putting together a team of compatriots twice as large as that found in the first game, and even more varied. I have to fault the game a tiny bit here because a lot of the characters are kind of straight out of “secondary characters 101″ … you’ve got the badass shaved-head convict chick, the brute who just wants to kill things, the philosophical and mild-mannered assassin, the sexy ice-queen with the universe’s greatest ass, the black guy who talks in a semi-urban dialect despite being from outer space, and so forth. You’ll even get to work with a couple of your pals from ME1 in the game, and you’ll visit the others, assuming they survived.
Bioware, the company responsible for the Mass Effect series have a reputation for being pretty much unparalleled masters of the story-based RPG, and the original Mass Effect was a hell of a game in that department. Mass Effect 2 retains some of the key introductions from the first game. The terrific “dialog wheel” conversation interface is still there, there’s an incredible amount of dialog to be had (all of it with full voice acting), and you are given a wide opportunity during the game to make choices that will affect your Paragon and Renegade scores. Unlike the first game, you can successfully accrue renegade points without being the galaxy’s biggest asshole, so that’s a plus. The game also remembers several choices you made in the first title, and will reference your actions when appropriate. It’s impressive.
In addition to the formidable story depth, they’ve somehow managed to eke out even better-looking environments and characters without making dramatic changes to the overall look and feel of the series. I don’t know how they did it, but they’ve managed to improve the graphical fidelity while simultaneously reducing by a large amount the “texture pop” which is so prevalent in modern, Unreal-Engine games. I only saw it happen a few times, whereas in the first game it was a near-constant experience.
The developers weren’t simply satisfied with improving the graphics and retaining the deep story possibilities of the original, however. They’ve also overhauled several significant areas of the game in order to reduce tedium and keep things rolling along. For example, there’s no longer any need to constantly evaluate the bazillion new items you’re always picking up. Instead, there’s just a simple tech tree to follow and only a few types of weapons to choose from. Upgrades and additional weapon models are available, but they’re relatively rare and very easy to manage. Upgrades = good, always, and the differences between weapon models are substantial and easily determined (and for the most part, there’s little reason to stick with an old model once a new one becomes available). There are also five or six Shepard-only “heavy” weapons to choose from, like a rocket launcher and a beam weapon you steal from the Collectors. You can only carry one at a time, so it’s best to figure out which one you like and stick with it.
They’ve also removed the occasionally fun but mostly awful part of the game where you lumber around planets in your land-based crawler, getting stuck on mountains as you attempt to search for that elusive, unmarked Prothean ruin or pile of lithium that you need to finish a collection quest. Instead we’re given a much more straightforward planet-scanning UI which allows you to collect the four elements you need to use when upgrading your weapons, armor, biotic utilities, and ship. This still isn’t perfect. To describe planet scanning, even after getting a few upgrades that speed it up and allow you to store more probes, as “somewhat tedious” is like describing the world’s fattest man as “a little chubby.”
Fortunately, there’s way more elements available in the galaxy than you actually need, so you can basically ignore all but the richest planets, just stopping by the others to read the thoroughly interesting descriptions and then moving on. Occasionally a planet will have an “anomaly” which will invariably let you go to the surface and perform a little mini-quest. In Mass Effect these sequences were all very similar, taking place in the same two or three prefab environments over and over. In ME2, each one is hand-crafted, and not all of them are combat-oriented. It’s a nice break in between the story missions, which have you first recruiting your team, then (optionally) doing missions to make each one more loyal, and then finally going after the Collectors with guns blazing on a “suicide mission” that never feels very suicidal because there’s an achievement description available right from the beginning that says “survive the suicide mission.”
While you’re doing all of this, you’ll visit several new locations, such as the lawless asteroid Omega, the Asari planet Ilium, and the Krogan homeworld of Tuchanka. You’ll also return to the Citadel, although your reception by the council whose asses you saved (assuming you chose to save them in ME1) is pretty pathetic. You can also sex up a variety of your shipmates — there are six possibilities in total, three for each sex, plus the option to have some encounters with your personal assistant. Both male and female versions of Shepard have the opportunity to get busy with aliens in addition to humans, which can lead to some very amusing dialog. Alternately, if you got involved with Kaiden, Ashley, or Liara in the first game, you can choose to remain true to them in the second. My wife forced Adrienne Shepard to stick with Liara, and we’re curious to see how it works out in Mass Effect 3. Adrian Shepard, on the other hand, is flirting with everything that moves. Hey, after two years frozen in space, a guy has needs, right?
In all, Mass Effect 2 is just a killer title, and an early contender for Game of the Year. It’s got action, romance, space travel, and a deep storyline that customizes itself to your playing style and the actions you choose to take. The characters are fun and interesting, the voice acting is top notch (Martin Sheen gets a crucial role as the head of Cerberus), and the game does an awesome job of setting up the third and supposedly final title. It will leave you looking forward to finding out more about Shepard and the galaxy’s ultimate fate, and eagerly anticipating the conclusion to the series.